Private master's comprehensive institutions (PMCIs) in the United States navigate pressures to expand college access and equity while striving for prestige in the academic hierarchy. To strive for prestige entails competing for world-class status of greater selectivity, research intensity and resources, but such a pathway to excellence may,…

This article explores leadership lessons that can be drawn from popular sport icons. These lessons reveal how athletes leverage their status to drive social change or how they inspire others through performance-based practices that align with effective modern-day leadership skills. We present four cases to illustrate key leadership competencies…

Purpose: Grounded in social cognitive theory, this study examines the role of responsible leadership in enhancing the reputation of universities within Bangladeshi higher education. Specifically, it explores the antecedents, outcomes and moderating factors influencing university reputation by connecting it with responsible leadership, teaching…

We offer a Cultural Studies approach--a transdisciplinary field of study critically examining contemporary culture--to illuminate the roles of cultural producers and consumers in mediating the meaning of university rankings amidst a global media landscape. Using the case study of Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) and drawing on the concepts of: (1)…

Prospective students and their families use college rankings to navigate their higher education options. Rising tuition and fees have made the college decision more fraught. Recently, the major college ranking providers have revised their methodologies to reflect costs and other considerations. These revisions raise important questions about the…

Located at the place where excessive entitlement and the "best-loved self" intersect, this research illustrates what happens when the excessive entitlement of one educator trumps that of another. Then, in a perverse sort of way, those who are excessively entitled may even imply that the other is acting excessively entitled. This is how…

This study explores the mechanisms that underlie the effect of school marketing strategies on parents' perceived school attractiveness, particularly emphasizing the mediating role of parents' perceptions of being welcomed in urban schools. Additionally, we investigated how schools' marketing strategies work differently among parents with different…

This study assesses the technical efficiency of higher education institutions in terms of labor market outcomes for recent graduates, employing a comparative analysis of three distinct methodological approaches. Using a sample of recent graduates of Colombian universities who earned their degrees between 2007 and 2011, we estimated the…

Whereas a growing number of studies evidence that research quality notions and evaluative practices are field- and context-specific, many focus on single evaluative practices or moments. This paper introduces the concept of "quality landscape" to capture dynamics of interrelated quality notions, evaluative moments and practices in a…

A pervasive issue in the school choice literature is whether schools of choice cream skim students by enrolling high-achieving, less-challenging, or less-costly students. Similarly, schools of choice may "push out" low-achieving, more-challenging, or more-costly students. Using longitudinal student-level data from Indiana, we created…

Is the ideal of a one-size-fits-all university model--where universities are capable of successfully performing all competencies simultaneously--ever achievable? Has the balance between teaching and research activities grown even more fragile or is such a balance unfeasible? In this paper, we review studies of institutional diversity in higher…

Many institutions of higher education are better known for their athletics programs than their academic offerings. Should a crisis arise, athletics scandal and notoriety can threaten the future trajectory and financial health of the campus. As such, lapses in intercollegiate athletics oversight can create fractures and tensions within institutions…

In the twenty-first century, free speech and its twin, free inquiry have increasingly come under fire, and to a far greater degree than in the 1950s, censors come from within academia. Various forms of critical theory have gained substantial influence in U.S. higher education, where adherents use their power to brand free speech and free inquiry…

Since the launch of the double world-class (DWC) project in 2015, China has entered into a new stage of building world-class universities. What makes China give up the existing projects for a new one? Towards the end of its first five-year cycle, has the version 2.0 of building world-class universities in China achieved the desired results? This…

This paper explores the way in which elite students from Germany and Romania understand the role of talent, effort, and structural factors in shaping educational success and failure. The image of a successful student aligns with the requirements of the selection processes, with Romanian students emphasising effort, and German students projecting…